Paid and unpaid care work is essential to our economy and society, covering activities such as childcare, elder care, and support for individuals with disabilities or illnesses. These efforts are vital for human well-being and form the foundation for all other work. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted our reliance on care work and its supporting infrastructures, […]
Drawing on six case studies (Kenya, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, the United States, and Zimbabwe), this paper explores the definitions, debates, and demands related to the concept of care infrastructure. The paper finds the following components of care infrastructure across the case studies: care-supporting physical infrastructure, knowledge production, community networks, national care frameworks and public […]
Unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) is performed around the world disproportionately by women and girls. Oxfam is committed to alleviating this burden of unpaid care and domestic work and to elevating the discourse on the value of UCDW’s contribution to society. As part of its continuing efforts to contribute to enhanced public policy around […]
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the dependence of our societies on systems of care and caregiving to survive and thrive. This support system, however, has been mostly unpaid if not totally unrecognized for far too long. Its resulting negative effects have disproportionately affected women and girls around the world, especially in the Global South. […]
As the number of COVID-19 cases increased dramatically at the height of the pandemic, so did the demand for invisible and unpaid labor when most people were forced to stay home during periods of lockdown and community quarantine. Consequently, women and girls bore most of the burden. Yet, while this was the case, the crucial […]
The COVID-19 global pandemic significantly added to the load of unpaid care work. As more were forced to stay home, the need for home care and chores multiplied globally. It has been found that women in the household shouldered the burden of disproportionate care work. Care work, in definition, is an occupation that gives opportunities […]
In the Philippines, a country extremely vulnerable to natural hazards and climate-related disasters, which exacerbate poverty and preexisting social vulnerabilities, women and girls do up to five to six times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. There is growing recognition that the billions of hours of the most essential work, including heavy […]
The Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care (WE-Care) programme aims to confront unpaid care work as a gender equality issue by recognizing, reducing and redistributing care work, and ensuring those who perform unpaid care are represented in policy decisions about it (the ‘4Rs’ framework). This mid-term evaluation of WE-Care programme activities in the Philippines used several […]
Social norms refer to the shared expectations held by a given community. They are often held in place by social approval or rewards for conformity, and by disapproval or sanctions for transgressions. Understanding how and why social norms hold sway can provide a powerful means for understanding the gendered division of work that prevails in […]
